John Trudell, Poet

"You have your thoughts and I have mine. This is the fact and you can't change it even if you kill me."

-— Ba Jin, shouted out at the end of a televised public humiliation in the People's Stadium of Shanghai, during the "Cultural Revolution" (20 June 1968)--

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(Santee poet and former spokesman for the Indians of All Tribes' occupation of Alcatraz Island, offered fresh insights on the occupation, the American Indian Movement and the Indian rights movement over the past 37 years in the film ''Trudell'' and in his talk following its recent screening in Tucson, Ariz. The two standing ovations he received after the film show that he is still dangerous to the status quo.)

TUCSON, Ariz.
John Trudell received two standing ovations after the screening of ''Trudell,'' proving that he is more dangerous, more lucid and more capable of mobilizing the masses than ever.

Speaking after the film, Trudell said the greatest fear in the corporate world is that Indian people will use their intelligence, deprogram themselves and think coherently.

Trudell said when one realizes this, one could never be imprisoned, because freedom remains within one's intellect and coherent thought.

''The power that they fear [is] the thoughts they cannot control.''

The film, by director Heather Rae, includes poignant archival footage of the occupation of Alcatraz by the Indians of All Tribes and the American Indian Movement's takeover of the BIA building in Washington, clash with police in Custer, S.D. and stronghold at Wounded Knee.

The film's legacy, however, remains embodied in the tender memories of Trudell's family killed in a house fire on Duck Valley tribal land in Nevada, a fire that remains unsolved.

In 1979, while protesting U.S. policy on American Indians, Trudell burned an American flag on the steps of FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C. Within a matter of hours, Trudell's wife, Tina Manning, their unborn child, children and Manning's mother were killed in the fire that trapped them inside their house.

Trudell said his wife's life and the importance of her work with the elderly in her own community at Duck Valley, and the threat this posed to those in power, should not be minimalized.

When the film screening ended at the Loft Theater, Trudell took the stage and, in his smooth near-rap epitaph to this tragedy, the Santee poet and one-time voice of Alcatraz and spokesman for AIM revealed the truths born from this wound.

Trudell said when he was younger; he fought for a revolution that he believed would lead to freedom. Now, he said, he knows that the path to true freedom is responsibility.

''We must use the power of intelligence to create power and our own reality,'' Trudell told the audience.

Between 1969 and 1981, the FBI compiled more than 17,000 pages of documents on Trudell, one of the largest in FBI history. Trudell said he realizes now why he was considered dangerous.

''I have the power to think coherently at times.''

After the death of his family, Trudell said he wandered as if in a fog, cared for by his friend, Dino Butler. Then, he began to hear words and lines, and he realized his wife wanted him to write these down; these became his poetry and songs.

''I died then. I had to die to get through it and learn to live again.'' He said there are some things that happen to us in life that neither the magic nor the distance offered by time can heal. This was one of those. With some falling-aparts, he said, there is no way to fix it.

''I'm following the lines. She gave me the lines to follow.''

In 1983, Trudell began to put his words to music with the help of a Kiowa guitar legend, the late Jesse Ed Davis, and Jackson Browne.

Trudell offered fresh insights on Alcatraz, AIM and the Indian rights movement over the past 37 years in the film and his talk.

Film images include the clash with police at the courthouse in Custer, S.D., and the struggle that followed on Pine Ridge and the murders of AIM members. Vocalizing treaty rights and the rights of sovereign nations came with a price, and many men, women, children and elderly were killed.

''It made the spirit of the people stronger,'' Trudell said.

Trudell felt, when he was younger, that he'd been born in the wrong place and time; he said he now feels that he was born at the right time and place.

In ''Trudell,'' Robert Redford credited Trudell with ''explosive insights.'' Redford said that for him, spending time with Trudell was like spending time with the Dalai Lama for others. Redford said he was most impressed with how Trudell committed his life to a cause that was so dangerous.

Trudell's poetry of sound and lyrics won him the praise of Bob Dylan. Browne said Trudell helped carry listeners across the great divide. Actor Kris Kristofferson spoke of what Trudell endured since ''they took his family away.'' Actor Gary Farmer called Trudell a Socrates for Indian people.

Speaking of Trudell and the movement were actor Val Kilmer, co-star with Trudell in ''Thunderheart,'' and Wilma Mankiller, activist and former principal chief of the Cherokee Nation.

Mankiller said that beginning with Alcatraz, Trudell was considered a threat because he could mobilize the people.

Lori Pourier said of Trudell: ''John was the voice of reason.''

Pourier remembers the women in the movement: slain Anna Mae Aquash and Ingrid Washinawatok and those who died young, including Nilak Butler. ''John was there for all our sisters.''

Born in 1946 in Omaha, Neb., Trudell's father was Santee and his maternal grandfather, who rode with Pancho Villa, was from Mexico. Trudell said his grandfather kidnapped his grandmother and fled to Kansas, where his mother grew up as a Mexican. Trudell's mother died when he was 6 years old.

''I remember she gave me grapes, green grapes.'' She hugged him and kissed him and she was gone.

During questions at the Loft, Trudell said he is neither American Indian nor Native American because he and his people predate America as human beings. The last 500 years, he said, have been rough, but the people survived.

When asked in the film by an interviewer how he felt about Columbus Day, Trudell responded: ''Would you celebrate Osama bin Laden Day?''

Trudell said the genocide of the people includes the erasing of ancestral memory. He said all people once lived in tribes, but non-Natives have been programmed to the point where they have lost their ancestral memory.

When asked about traditional ceremonies, he said the importance remains in understanding the ceremony and respecting the power. ''Tradition is based on respect,'' he said, pointing out that it takes more than reciting the lines of a ceremony to understand it and honor it.

As for voting, he said he doesn't take part in replacing one bad leader with another. There's another problem with electing leaders within the current system, he said: they give people someone else to blame, rather than taking personal responsibility.

''Bush is the new one to hate, but when I was young, it was Nixon.''

In ''Trudell,'' there is a film clip showing him as an actor in ''Thunderheart,'' portraying a life similar to his own.

''I'm not a militant, I'm a warrior,'' he said to the FBI in the film.

On stage at the Loft, Trudell said, ''It is all about energy.''

Trudell said human beings are made of the same elements as those within the earth. These elements can produce toxic materials when processed, such as uranium for nuclear power. In the same manner, toxins can be produced from the processing and programming of human beings.

Trudell said the secret remains in coherent and intelligent thought.

''This is our power.''